Michael DuHaime, then political director for Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign, speaks to the media aboard a campaign plane in October 2008. / AFP/Getty Images

Written by

Bob Jordan, Dustin Racioppi and Michael Symons

@CapitolQuickies

Chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and founding member of Wolff & Samson. Income for the law firm and its lobbying affiliate soared into the millions after Christie took office. Total: At least $12.2 million starting in 2010.

Bill Palatucci

Christie’s former law partner was senior vice president at Community Education Centers when its halfway houses, run by a non-profit affiliate, saw revenues jump after Christie took office, going from $71 million to $77.8 million in one year.

Michael DuHaime

Mercury Public Affairs under the direction of DuHaime has attracted public relations work from companies doing business with the state, including a state lottery operator (a state contract worth up to $526 million).

John Inglesino

The former Morris County freeholder saw his law firm’s government lobbying business rise from $16,000 in 2010 to $2.2 million from 2011 through 2013.

‘The phrase (Christie) used is that he would turn Trenton upside down. But mostly the only change we’ve seen is that it’s his set of insiders benefiting.’ Brigid Callahan Harrison, political science professor at Montclair State University.

‘David Samson’s commitment has been to benefit the region and not about personal gain.” Michael Chertoff, an attorney for Samson.

David Samson, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey / AP

The crowd roars as Chris Christie takes to the stage wearing his trademark New Jersey lapel pin. The cavernous banquet hall in Morris County is packed to the walls with the faithful, waving American flags and blue “Christie for Governor” signs on this November night in 2009.

“Tomorrow ... starting tomorrow,” Christie thunders as he claims the governorship for the first time, “we are going to pick Trenton up and we are going to turn it upside down!”

For a Republican to defeat an incumbent Democrat in a mostly Democratic state was a monumental mandate for Christie. He campaigned as an outsider, a former U.S. Attorney for New Jersey who always spoke with pride about the 100-plus public officials who were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, corruption charges during his tenure.

“I am a reformer,” he said on the campaign trail. His election website touted 88 ways that candidate Christie, when he became governor, would eschew politics as usual in a state famous for inside deals, political backscratching and public officials profiting from cozy connections.

Four years later, Christie has become a different type of governor, but perhaps not in the way the public expected.

The governor has allowed political cronyism to continue and even flourish, rather than stamp it out, with some of his closest confidants enriching themselves through millions of dollars in state contracts, and legal and lobbying fees, an Asbury Park Press review of thousands of pages of campaign, lobbying and contracting documents found.

But the inside player who has gained the most in the four years since Christie became governor is David Samson, a former state attorney general and high-powered lawyer who has served Democratic and Republican administrations in the last three decades. Christie tapped Samson to chair the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an agency that controls $8.2 billion and most of the transportation between the two states.

Samson, a key name in the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, and the law firm he founded, Wolff & Samson of Roseland, along with its lobbying affiliate, Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC, have earned millions of dollars from government connections in the Christie era, public records show.

The lobbying firm’s top clients have also prospered, such as GTECH Corp., part of the Northstar New Jersey Lottery Group. The consortium last year signed a 15-year contract with the Christie administration to manage the New Jersey Lottery, which generates more than $2.7 billion in sales annually.

GTECH paid Wolff & Samson Public Affairs $450,000 to be its lobbyist, starting in 2011. Under the terms, the new lottery contract could pay Northstar up to $526 million over 15 years. GTECH did not respond to a request for comment.

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“The phrase (Christie) used is that he would turn Trenton upside down. But mostly the only change we’ve seen is that it’s his set of insiders benefiting since Christie took office,” said Brigid Callahan Harrison, a professor of political science and law at Montclair State University. “He very implicitly and explicitly said that it wouldn’t be politics as usual. He made a specific promise that the cronyism he identified under past governors would be absent from his administration.”

Money and jobs

Examples of money and government job connections in New Jersey abound across administrations. A decade ago, the money made by insiders was sizable, but small in comparison to what Christie friends are making now. Many insiders from the early 2000s used their connections to win part-time government jobs and legal contracts from municipalities.

A company headed by former Democratic Gov. James J. Florio won a $2 million contract in 2002 after the firm was the sole bidder to collect unpaid taxes in Camden, a Democratic stronghold. The contract earned the firm, Xspand, $600,000 in the first year.

On the Republican side, former state Sen. and acting Gov. John O. Bennett III of Monmouth County took in $1.9 million in salary over 10 years from the state, seven municipalities and one school board for legal work through 2002. Bennett is now chairman of the Monmouth County Republican Organization.

But Samson’s totals from lobbying and legal work tower over those two examples.

What role Samson played in the bridge lane closure has drawn wide scrutiny, including the attention of the Legislature’s special investigation committee and the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Both have issued subpoenas for documents related to the closures, which have been linked to a political payback scheme run by Christie appointees in his Trenton office and at the Port Authority. Christie has said he knew nothing of the plan to close access lanes at the GWB last September. At a Port Authority meeting in February, Samson said he is “deeply sorry” for the traffic caused by the lane closures, but has said nothing else.

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The Press’ review of documents show that the law firm’s income grew and Samson developed a number of potential conflicts as Port Authority chairman. These include:

Wolff & Samson’s lobbying efforts. The law firm greatly expanded its lobbying work that began in 2006 when it established a new limited liability company called Wolff & Samson Public Affairs in 2011. Lobbying revenue soared past $1 million in 2011 as companies such as Honeywell International Inc., Verizon New Jersey and Walmart hired Wolff & Samson Public Affairs. The law firm ranked 81st out of 115 lobbying groups in revenue before Christie took office in 2010. By 2013, the law firm and its public-affairs company combined to register the 10th highest lobbying revenues in the state, according to public disclosure records.

Wolff & Samson’s legal work. In 2011, Samson voted to have the Port Authority embark on a $256 million reconstruction of a PATH station in Harrison, even though his law firm represented the developer of nearby luxury apartments near the station, which stood to gain in value from the station improvements.

Questions about Samson’s role in the takeover of Atlantic City International Airport. Samson publicly supported the Port Authority’s takeover of the small South Jersey airport, even though his law firm stood to benefit from the deal because it is bond counsel for the owner of the airport, the South Jersey Transportation Authority. Samson sat out the vote on the Port Authority for the deal, but a union-backed watchdog group, the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, has filed a complaint with the New Jersey State Ethics Commission because of Samson’s public statements of support prior to the vote.

Wolff & Samson law firm’s government work. The firm was paid close to $5 million from state, county and local governments in 2012 for various legal work, including the refinancing of tens of millions of dollars in bonds for the South Jersey Transportation Authority that owns Atlantic City International Airport. It held 21 public contracts in 2012.

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In total, Wolff & Samson has been paid at least $12.2 million for public-related work since Christie came to power: $347,000 in 2010 just for lobbying government; $4.7 million in 2011 for government legal work and lobbying; $6.1 million in 2012; and $1.1 million in 2013 for lobbying only. Income figures for government work last year are not yet available. Government contract records for 2010 are not available.

On Christie’s “Ask the Governor” radio talk show broadcast on NJ 101.5 on Feb. 26, the governor said that he stands “strongly, firmly” by Samson.

Former state Sen. William Schluter, a Republican and former member of the State Ethics Commission, said Christie has leveraged New Jersey’s chummy politics at a whole new level, and in a much more blunt style, than past governors.

“I didn’t see it with Gov. Kean and Gov. Whitman and Gov. Florio and Gov. Byrne,” Schluter said. “They played politics and they had allies. It was a lot of that, but it wasn’t this kind of aggression. It was more civil … I think people separated their personal business from their governmental roles.”

Joseph Marbach, a political science professor at LaSalle University, Philadelphia, and a long-time New Jersey political observer said, “There certainly was an impression made by Chris Christie in his first campaign for governor that what we’re finding out now about David Samson couldn’t possibly take place if Christie became governor.

“Christie sold himself as the crusading former U.S. attorney who was going to stomp out the bad stuff in government,” Marbach said. “Now there are good questions on whether things the public expected him to address were ever addressed.”

Politics and David Samson

“In politics it’s all about connecting the dots,” said Schluter, who ran for governor in 2001 as an independent. “With the Christie administration, there are an awful lot of dots and an awful lot of connecting links.”

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Christie’s office declined to comment about Samson’s public and private business roles.

Michael Chertoff, one of Samson’s lawyers, said in a statement that “since assuming the chairmanship of the (Port Authority), David Samson’s commitment has been to benefit the region and not about personal gain.”

Samson, 74, was attorney general for the first 13 months of Democratic Gov. James E. McGreevey’s administration in 2002 and 2003 before returning to private practice. He is registered as unaffiliated but generally thought of as a Republican — even before his close alliance with Christie, for whom he served as campaign counsel and transition chairman in 2009.

Samson’s time as attorney general overlapped with Christie’s tenure as U.S. attorney. In 2007, Christie appointed Samson as the outside monitor assigned to review whether the medical device manufacturer Smith & Nephew was meeting terms of the deferred prosecution agreement it struck to avoid kickback charges related to knee and hip replacements.

Wolff & Samson registered as a lobbying firm in late 2006, taking in roughly $196,000 in revenues through 2009 — the year before Christie took office. Samson himself deregistered, or left lobbying, in the spring of 2008. In those first three full years, the public affairs firm was ranked the 79th, 73rd and 81st largest lobbying operation in Trenton, out of about 115 firms.

Business vastly improved when Christie took office.

Revenues grew to $347,520 in 2010, as Wolff & Samson added Honeywell International Inc., Verizon New Jersey and charter-school operator National Heritage Academies to its roster. A year later, the firm added a dedicated public affairs affiliate, Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC, which has generated revenues averaging more than $1 million annually, in addition to the lobbying work still done by the Wolff & Samson law firm itself.

Wolff & Samson’s biggest lobbying client has been Honeywell, which has paid both the law firm and its public affairs LLC $780,000 since 2010 to track multiple pieces of legislation and press the Economic Development Authority for economic development money and job retention funds.

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The EDA approved a 10-year, $40 million grant to keep Honeywell’s headquarters in Morris County at a new site in Morris Plains, rather than move to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. The EDA is headed by long-time Christie ally Michele Brown, whom Christie recommended for the $225,000 a year post.

Honeywell said it works with a number of firms to help it meet its business goals.

Since 2010, Wolff & Samson law firm and Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC have attracted some of the biggest clients in the state. They have been paid $555,000 by St. Barnabas Health Care Systems, $403,000 as part of representing Walmart, $335,000 by Verizon New Jersey, $250,000 by National Heritage Academies, $194,000 by Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey and $174,000 by Shore Memorial Hospital, public records show.

Another major lobbying client who benefited from Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC’s lobbying efforts is GTECH Corp., an Italian-owned, Rhode Island-based company that owns a 41 percent stake in the Northstar New Jersey Lottery Group, a consortium that last year signed a 15-year contract to manage the New Jersey Lottery.

GTECH paid Wolff & Samson Public Affairs LLC $450,000 as its lobbyist, starting in 2011. The lobbyists disclosed that they had meetings and phone calls with Treasury Department officials concerning the state’s drafting, preparation and implementation of a plan to convert the lottery from public management to private oversight.

Northstar NJ was the sole bidder for the contract, but the fact that just one company submitted a bid was not a coincidence, said Seth Hahn, the legislative director for Communications Workers of America, who represented lottery employees.

“Everyone in Trenton knew that this was a done deal before the process even started, and everyone knew that GTECH hired Wolff & Samson and this was over, and that’s why nobody bid on it,” Hahn said. “This was greased from the start. You don’t just pluck Wolff & Samson and hire them because, gosh, they’re just the best in the business.”

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GTECH officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Treasury negotiated an agreement with Northstar NJ that yielded an immediate $120 million payment to the state, described as an advance against future revenues. Contract terms show Northstar could earn $526 million over 15 years if it grows the lottery 4 percent a year, according to the contract. As long as it meets its guarantee that growth will average 1.5 percent a year, Northstar keeps part of the profit and doesn’t have to pay the state anything more.

The Chris Christie circle

GTECH enlisted Mercury Public Affairs of Westfield for its the public relations services. Mercury’s managing director Michael DuHaime, who runs the company’s operations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, was the lead strategist for Christie’s 2009 and 2013 campaigns. DuHaime is likely to play a key role if Christie runs for president, given his national connections through his work on the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, John McCain and Rudolph Giuliani and for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. GTECH payments to Mercury are not publicly disclosed.

“Mike DuHaime is one of the most sought-after public relations strategists in the entire country with experience in nearly 40 states, so it is unsurprising Mercury has private-sector public relations and campaign clients in his home state as well,” Mercury spokeswoman Emily D’Alberto said.

Another close ally to Christie is William Palatucci, the governor’s former law partner and now a member of the Republican National Committee. Palatucci found himself at the center of a storm early in Christie’s term when he was senior vice president and general counsel for the for-profit Community Education Centers based in West Caldwell.

CEC has a close business relationship with the nonprofit Education and Health Centers of America Inc., based in Wall, which operates halfway houses for federal, state and county entities in the state. When Christie cut the state budget in 2010, one of the few line items that actually saw an increase was funding for the Correction Department’s halfway house program. That program got a $3.1 million boost. Critics cried foul but the governor said the boost was mandated by a law the Democrats passed.

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Government contracts and contributions to EHCA were sagging — until 2011/2012. Its revenue from mostly government sources rose from $71 million in the 2010 tax year to $77.8 million in 2011 tax year, which includes part of 2012, according to EHCA’s IRS tax filings. Under its agreement with the for-profit CEC company, the non-profit EHCA paid CEC for “staff, facilities and support services,” the tax records show.

ECHA’s tax return for the year ending in June 2012 shows it spent $74.9 million on a “support service fee,” accounting for most of its $77 million in expenses. EHCA also discloses an unpaid liability of $11.5 million owed to CEC. CEC’s chairman and CEO, John Clancy, was also president of the non-profit EHCA. His salary for the 2011 tax year was reported as $351,346, up from $291,566 in 2009, according to EHCA’s tax returns. The New Jersey Office of State Comptroller in 2011 found that the “primary business purpose of EHCA is to receive public contracts on behalf of CEC” and that “the CEO described EHCA as “an independent holding company” that “wouldn’t exist without CEC.” The Department of Corrections viewed CEC and ECHA as “the same company,” the comptroller reported.

Palatucci left CEC in 2012 and is now special counsel at the Gibbons law firm in Newark.

Palatucci, who is commonly seen with Christie at major political events, also had a position at EHCA but said he resigned in 2009, though he remained at parent company CEC for three more years.

“I was not employed by EHCA in 2010, and so I can’t speak for them,’’ Palatucci said, referring to the period when EHCA’s revenue jumped.

He added, “You should note, though, the fact that all contracts in New Jersey to EHCA were the product of competitive bidding and (were) essentially re-awards that the company had since 1998.’’

Other campaign friends of Christie have seen their fortunes rise, as well.

Inglesino, Wyciskala & Taylor LLC, the law firm where John Inglesino, a former Morris County freeholder and longtime friend of Christie who was an unpaid adviser for the governor’s 2009 campaign, is managing partner, registered to lobby in August 2010, the year Christie took office.

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The firm took in just $16,000 in 2010, but that grew to a combined $2.2 million in lobbying revenues from 2011 through 2013 from clients such as Asbury Partners LLC and Madison Marquette, both of which are redeveloping Asbury Park, and the state-regulated New Meadowlands Racetrack. Inglesino did not respond to a request for comment.

Yet not all the lobbying efforts by Wolff & Samson law firm and Wolff & Samson Public Affairs have succeeded in the Christie era.

As the lobbyist for Liberty Natural Gas, Wolff & Samson law firm met with the Department of Environmental Protection about plans to build a liquefied natural gas deepwater port 16 miles off the Jersey Shore near Asbury Park, but Christie opposed the plan. It is now seeking to build one closer to New York, which Christie also opposes.

Another Wolff & Samson law firm client, Rockland Capital, came up just short — though hasn’t given up — in its efforts to gain permission for South Jersey Gas to thread a 22-mile pipe through the Pinelands National Reserve to the BL England power plant, located in upper Cape May County, which is owned by Rockland.

But it wasn’t for lack of trying.

The state’s Pinelands Commission, which is tasked with preserving the vast Pinelands area in the southern part of the state, had to approve the pipeline.

One skeptic among the 15-member commission, Ed Lloyd, said he was ordered by the commission’s ethics officer to recuse himself from the vote. Both the state ethics commission and the attorney general claimed that Lloyd had a conflict of interest. Lloyd sits on the board of the Eastern Environmental Law Clinic, where a staff member had signed onto a letter with other environmental groups seeking more time to review the pipeline proposal.

Weeks before the vote, the commission’s ethics officer said, “Don’t kill the messenger,” Lloyd recalls. She spoke with the ethics commission, who said, “on order from the governor’s office ... They have ordered you to recuse yourself.”

Without Lloyd participating, the pipeline plan failed in a 7-7 tie vote.

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Lloyd said he received nothing in writing from the Pinelands commission, the state ethics commission or the attorney general’s office about his possible conflict — “a rather unusual way for a government entity to do business,” he said. Lloyd recused himself from the vote because, he said, “I felt that I should.”

Lori Grifa, a former Department of Community Affairs commissioner under Christie, works at Wolff & Samson law firm, which represented the Rockefeller Group until earlier this year, whose long-stalled proposal for a Hoboken high-rise erupted in controversy in January. Mayor Dawn Zimmer claimed that multiple state officials, including Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, indicated that the city’s request for post-Sandy flood-control project funds was contingent on approval of the Rockefeller development. Rockefeller and Wolff & Samson parted ways following Zimmer’s comments.

Guadagno and the Christie administration say Zimmer’s allegation is false. The matter is being investigated by U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman.

Grifa said in quarterly disclosure reports filed with the state election commission by the Wolff & Samson law firm that she met with NJ Transit management in the winter and spring of 2013 to discuss the development and construction of a light-rail station in northern Hoboken, near the proposed Rockefeller project. NJ Transit signed a nonbinding commitment to do so last June, unbeknownst to Hoboken’s municipal officials, who have not approved the high-rise development project.

The Wolff & Samson law firm’s most recent disclosure form says Grifa met between October and December with the Governor’s Office on behalf of the Rockefeller Group, as well as the DEP and the state Economic Development Authority, to review flood control issues and discuss tax-incentive programs.

Reversal of contributions

The Wolff & Samson law firm has been involved on several levels with the failed Xanadu mall project being revived under Christie as the American Dream in the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The law firm represents Triple Five Worldwide in its acquisition, financing and redevelopment of the site.

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Grifa in her role as Christie’s DCA commissioner was chairwoman of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. The commission can veto zoning changes in the region, but hasn’t acted on Triple Five’s plans, before or after Grifa’s joining Wolff & Samson.

Environmentalists fear additional storm water pollution for the Hackensack River. The Giants and Jets in a pending lawsuit claim that the mega-mall “will clog the complex’s already congested transportation networks and create a transportation nightmare when events are held at MetLife Stadium.’’

Triple Five, meanwhile, has won taxpayer-supported backing from the state Economic Development Authority, headed by Christie ally Michele Brown. The EDA board recently awarded Triple Five a tax break worth nearly $400 million to help offset costs associated with redevelopment.

Christie has described the American Dream as a “jobs machine” for about 9,000 construction workers and 11,000 regular employees. A spokesman for the developer said work will be restarted “reasonably soon.”

Meanwhile, it is not clear whether Wolff & Samson law firm influenced a DEP permit reversal, despite claims to the contrary by an environmentalist, that now allows for the construction of a Walmart Supercenter on 21 acres in Toms River and Manchester.

The permit application had been ruled dead twice by the DEP because the proposed site was determined to be habitat for threatened northern pine snakes. But soon after Walmart hired the Wolff & Samson law firm and then Wolff & Samson Public Affairs to lobby on unrelated issues in New Jersey, DEP officials changed their minds and issued a permit in May 2012.

Walmart spent $18,000 with Wolff & Samson in 2010, then $376,000 from 2011 to 2013 for lobbying of state government, though another law firm handled the Walmart application. Disclosure reports do not indicate that Wolff & Samson lobbied for the DEP approval.

Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, said he needs to be convinced otherwise.

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“The timing strongly suggests that the permit application took on a more favorable view after Wolff & Samson came on board for Walmart,’’ Montgomery said.

A Walmart spokesman said that “to our knowledge, no one at Wolff & Samson played a role in the Toms River siting project.” The project has not been built yet.

Until recent years, and Christie’s ascension in Trenton, campaign contributions from Wolff & Samson law firm and its principals, officers and their spouses overwhelmingly favored Democrats, disclosure reports show.

In 2006, when Democrats controlled all of state government, the firm’s partners gave $26,200 to Democrats — including $10,000 to the Senate Democrats’ leadership committee, then controlled by state Sen. Richard Codey. They gave nothing to Republicans.

Republicans got $6,000 in 2007 from Wolff & Samson partners, in the form of a contribution to the Assembly leadership committee. That still paled next to the $19,500 given to Democrats.

Fast-forward to the Christie years, and the pattern reverses.

In the two most recent years for which state pay-to-play data is available, 2011 and 2012, Wolff & Samson partners reported nearly $40,000 in campaign contributions. Thirteen Democratic state lawmakers received a combined $12,400 in campaign funds. Yet GOP funds received $27,400, including $10,000 to the Republican Governors Association, which Christie now chairs.

Millions from bond deals

As a result of Wolff & Samson law firm’s long history and involvement in New Jersey politics, it has enjoyed a robust amount of public-sector contracts, primarily as bond counsel to state agencies and municipalities. Its legal fees from public-sector clients averaged $1.87 million from 2006 to 2008.

That revenue has risen significantly in recent years, though, due largely to agencies affiliated with the Christie administration.

Revenues from government clients rose to $3.5 million in 2011, including $2.8 million from state-affiliated sources, and $4.9 million in 2012, including $3.6 million from the state or state agencies. That status appears to have continued in 2013. A New Jersey Law Journal story said Thomson Reuters data showed Wolff & Samson law firm led all law firms in the state in public financing through the first half of last year, accounting for 30 percent of market share.

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Most significant has been Wolff & Samson’s work as general counsel and bond counsel to the Turnpike Authority, which generated $644,000 in revenue for the firm in 2011 and more than $2 million in 2012. It also earned more than $1.4 million in two years from New Jersey Transit and more than $825,000 from the state Office of the Attorney General to serve as outside counsel.

Wolff & Samson was paid $535,621 in 2012 by the Office of the Attorney General, which was at that time headed by Jeffrey Chiesa, a former attorney at Wolff & Samson. Chiesa was appointed by Christie to serve in the U.S. Senate for nearly five months last year after the death of U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Chiesa has since returned to Wolff & Samson.

Wolff & Samson was also hired in September 2010 as bond counsel by the South Jersey Transportation Authority, the operator of the Atlantic City Airport, an arrangement that yielded $113,700 for the firm by the end of 2012 and remains in effect.

That pay was primarily associated with the authority’s refinancing of nearly $102.5 million of its $487 million in debt in 2012.

In 2013, the Port Authority of NY/NJ began managing the SJTA’s Atlantic City International Airport, six years after then-Gov. Jon Corzine signed a law allowing for it in exchange for the Port Authority taking over a New York State airport. The possibility of the Port Authority operating the Atlantic City airport as recommended by Christie’s transition team in 2010. Samson recused himself from the votes associated with the takeover.

The Port Authority should not be operating in Atlantic City at all, but “Christie’s commissioners on the Port Authority pressed successfully to have the authority take responsibility for the Atlantic City airport, even though Atlantic City is far outside the port district,” said Jameson W. Doig, a professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire and the author of “Empire on the Hudson,” a history of the authority.

Doig said that in a recent conversation with Samson Doig made the case that, as Port Authority chairman, Samson’s loyalty should be to the authority and to maintaining independence from political pressures.

“David Samson came up and said to me, ‘No, I think our role is to the governor we’re responsible to report to,’ ” Doig recounted, then added, “What you see in Christie’s selections, in terms of patronage appointments, is an example of ratcheting things up and undermining independence — much more, I would say, (than) previous governors had.”